Winged
by DeadstarBliss
Summary: When Sherlock starts finding large white feathers lying around 221B Baker Street, he realises that perhaps John is hiding more from him than he thought. *The sequel Fallen Angel is now up.*
1. Chapter 1

**Winged**

It wasn't the first time that John had woken up from a nightmare to find Sherlock standing over his bed. Sherlock didn't wake him or make any move to comfort him, he merely watched and observed.

"Sherlock!" John gasped, struggling to breathe through the panic brought on by his nightmares.

"Nightmares of the war again, John?" He asked, observing the fact that usually in nightmares, people sweat. John, however, was completely dry. In fact, Sherlock would almost say that John seemed to be glowing. But that could just be his pale, untanned skin revealed by his t-shirt reflecting the weak light of the moon shining through the window.

Not exactly. "Y-yeah. Horrible." John fell back on to his bed, arm flung across his eyes, slowly lowering his rapidly beating heart. What Sherlock didn't know, was that he wasn't dreaming about Afghanistan, but his life before that. The Big War, as he dubbed it in his mind. The war that raged across dimensions, between Above and Below. Light and Dark. Good and Evil. John shuddered at the memory and saw Sherlock's eyes narrow. John could tell that Sherlock was trying to think of the right thing to do in these sorts of circumstances, since he was in John's room in the middle of the night, watching him suffer through another countless nightmare and all.

"W-would you… uh. Would you like to talk about it?" Sherlock was hoping beyond all hope that his friend would refuse. John knew this.

"No thanks, Sherlock." John removed his arm and studied his friend. "How long have you been there?"

Sherlock stopped to think for a moment "Roughly since you began having the nightmare." That didn't really help John.

"Okay. And _'roughly'_ how long would that be?"

"About an hour." Sherlock shrugged "Sixty-seven minutes to be precise." John nodded slowly and Sherlock lifted his chin slightly, his eyes glancing about the room.

"Okay. Well… have you finished with whatever it was you were doing?" Sherlock suddenly seems to come back to himself.

"Yes. Yes! Right. Uh, thanks, John. Erm. Sleep well." Sherlock fled the room. The ex-soldier shook his head and closed his eyes. Bright white burned his mind. Growling in annoyance, John swung his feet out of bed. He wouldn't be getting back to sleep tonight. The glowing red numbers of his alarm clock told him that it was 3:33am. No-one would be out and about now. Ensuring that the door to his bedroom had been fully closed by his departing flatmate, John removed his t-shirt and dropped it on the floor, spreading his arms wide. The doctor sighed with sweet relief as two, large, crisp white wings unfurled from his back. Momentarily, John struggled with his window, but he eventually managed to wrangle it open wide enough that he and his wings could crawl through. He leapt in to the cool night air, enjoying the stretch of his wings as he worked the rarely used muscles.

"Sorry, John. I forgot my noteb–" Sherlock trailed off as he caught sight of the curtains swaying in the gentle breeze flowing through John's open window. A nearly translucent feather lay on top of John's discarded sleeping shirt. Sherlock picked up the feather and studied it carefully. It was a feather larger than any bird native to Great Britain would have. Sherlock looked out the open window, his mind working full tilt.

'_When the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' _He'd be a hypocrite if he didn't believe his own words. But… really? _John_ has _wings_?

* * *

The orange glow of first light started to tinge the clouds as he drifted through them on the updrafts. With a reluctant sigh and yawn of exhaustion brought about from his strenuous exercise, John wheeled sharply in the air, before tucking his wings close to his body and beginning a high speed dive towards sleepy London below. Just as he began to make out distinct markings on the cars, he decided he was close enough and spread his wings, the three metre wing span giving him the amount of lift needed to pull him sharply out of the dive and speed along the rooftops of buildings. His window was still open and John slowed right down, managing to land his feet on the edge of his window and slowly tuck himself through, careful not to catch his wings as he climbed inside his bedroom again.

Sherlock couldn't help but notice the thud from upstairs as John presumably climbed through his window again. He wrapped his coat further around himself and stared through the brain numbing television, mind whirring. '_Need more evidence to suggest that John has wings. For instance, how does he hide them? Was he born with them? What would his feathers feel li–' _Sherlock cut that thought, shaking his head as if to toss it from his mind. His fingers twirled the single feather he found in John's room, gently running it down his jaw as his mind was lost in thought.

The hot water soothed pleasantly aching muscles and slightly rejuvenated some of John's energy. John thought about getting a plumber in to fix the taps that squeaked as you turned them off, and the fact that no matter how tight you turned the taps… the water never really seemed to stop coming out of the faucet. John towelled himself down thoroughly, ruffling his wings afterwards to shake away the last of the water, groaning at the droplets that were flung everywhere. Reluctantly, John hid his wings and pulled on his shirts and jumper.

* * *

"I can feel you staring at my back, Sherlock." John muttered, for the most part, engrossed in the morning newspaper as he drank his tea at the table. "Is there something I can help you with?" John didn't need to look around to know that Sherlock had begun staring out the window instead, his violin bow swaying gently in the air as he stares in to space. "Sherlock?"

"Hmm?" The other man jolts back to awareness, still slightly unfocused eyes study John's back for any sign of something abnormal. But it looks no different to his own.

"I asked if there was something I could help you with. You've been staring at me for the last hour now. I can practically feel your eyes burning in to me. It is rather annoying." John finally turns in his seat to make eye contact for the first time that morning.

"I was hoping you might be able to give me a bit of help with the new case." Sherlock lied. John knew he was lying. "If you were a murderer and you had to go in to hiding, where would you go?"

* * *

Sherlock kept finding feathers around the flat, often in the strangest of places. Most predominately in John's bedroom, as is to be expected. But, occasionally, he'll find one or two in the bathroom. Sometimes he even finds them in the kitchen or living room. Sherlock finds the obvious conclusion - that still seems to be _impossible_ - getting harder to ignore. Where else would the feathers be coming from?


	2. Chapter 2

Footsteps sounded heavily behind him as the man with the gun ran up what seemed like a million flights of stairs. Lungs burning, legs aching, the man burst out on to the rooftop; gradually slowing to a stop when he realises he's been cornered. Doing an about face, he turns back to the door he just burst forth from. His two pursuers emerge, panting. The tall, curly haired one starts talking, pacing around him like a hunter surveying his frightened, cornered prey. He tells him what he's done, the mistakes he made that led he and his partner to him. Remembering the gun tucked in his waistband against his back he whipped it out and cocked the gun. The curly one froze, his friend stiffened in surprise.

"I've 'ad enough, Mister 'Olmes. I did what I 'ad to do to protect my kids. Don' you see? She was gonna run off wit' dat other guy and take 'em away from me. I couldn't allow that. The other guy's a tosser!" Sherlock stared at the barrel of the gun pointed at his chest, and tried not to feel the wind blowing him towards the edge of the building behind him. He could see John behind the criminal, eyes wide and frozen with fear for his friend. "I don' need the likes of you turnin' me in to da coppers. They'll only take my kids from me too, an' I don' wanna 'ave to kill more people jus' so's I can see my own kids."

"Put the gun down, Lawson. I know you're upset, but you _have murdered _your own wife. What sort of effect would that have on your kids if they found out?" Sherlock asked.

"I don' plan on them findin' out." Sherlock stared at John as the gun was aimed more directly at his head and took a step backwards.

'_This is it, John. Please don't let me down. Prove me right._' He took one more step backwards, still staring John in the eyes, pleading with him. He dropped backwards over the edge, and almost seemed to fall in slow motion. He heard three distinct sounds. The first two sounded like fabric ripping and a flock of birds taking flight, the third sound was what bothered him. Outside the rushing of wind in his ears, he heard a gunshot. It wasn't fired at him though; he'd already been falling for about 3.7 seconds before the gun fired. The sky was a beautiful deep blue, and he took time to admire it before he found his genius brains splattered all over the sidewalk. A figure leapt out over the edge of the building, it looked like a massive bird in the silhouette created by the sun in his eyes. It dropped towards him at a greater speed than he was falling. Strong arms encircled his waist and tilted him in to the dive too. Warm brown eyes smiled at him for a moment before looking up – or down, depending on how you look at it – at the ground rapidly approaching them. They pulled out of the dive suddenly; the force generated by the manoeuvre pushed all the air out of his lungs as they shot up in the sky, before evening out and landing on a smaller building opposite the one they had just been standing on.

"John!" Sherlock wheezed, dropping to his knees as he tried to suck in a breath. The winged man reached around and touched one of the wings drooping slightly at his shoulder – the right one, Sherlock noticed. Well, John thought to himself, there's another jumper ruined. Sherlock realised what happened. John had revealed his wings, ripping through his clothes, as soon as Sherlock slipped over the edge and must have jumped past the man with the gun. In his shock, he'd fired the gun and it must have grazed John's wing.

"You okay?" John asked, wiping the blood off his hand on his jeans. Ever the doctor, Sherlock thought, asking if someone was okay before accounting for himself.

"Me? Fine. What about you? You're hurt!" He pushed himself to his feet and approached the man who had saved his life for what could have been the twentieth time or the hundredth; he'd stopped counting ages ago.

"I'll be alright." John murmured, staring up at the other building. Mr Lawson had done a runner. He cursed and returned his attention to the piercing blue eyes staring at the wings protruding from his back. "What?"

Sherlock boggled. "What do you _mean_, what?" The other man waved his hands in a vague indication of the extra extremities the other man possessed. "You have _wings_, John! And that begs the bloody question, _why _have I never seen them before?" John couldn't help but smile at that. Of course Sherlock would be… well… Sherlock, in a time like this.

"Because you're not _supposed _to see them, Sherlock; no one is." John tried to inject seriousness in to his voice, but failed miserably at the sight of pure joy and awe on his friend's face.

Sherlock reached out, "Can I–?"

"Go ahead." John turned his left side towards Sherlock slightly, as his right wing was _really_ hurting right about now, thanks. The hand that he has watched handle fragile items, and glasses and tubes full of dangerous chemicals now stroke the soft feathers of his wings as if they were the most precious, fragile things on Earth.

"What are you, John?" Sherlock whispered. John had to strain to hear him, as his question was nearly blown away by the wind.

"You really want to know? I'm what I suppose you would call an angel. I'm not sure I am, though. As far as I know, I was sent here from another dimension. I was fighting in a war – not Afghanistan, something _much_ bigger and less petty – and I was killed. Next thing I know, I wake up in a hotel, a set of documents in a folder on a bedside table and a few thousand pounds to my name. I wander around the city for about an hour or so, when Mike Stamford, whom I'd never met before, comes up to me and starts talking like we'd known each other for years. Then, next thing I know, I'm moving in with you." Sherlock's eyes widen even more, if that's at all possible.

"What's your last memory of that place you came from?" He asks, his voice quiet with wonderment.

"Not sure. I do recall pain; something rising from the Darkness, and demons! Yes, lots of those. It's all a bit blurred, really." John grunts as the pain in his wing suddenly makes itself known again. He winces and Sherlock notices.

"How about we get down from here and head back to Baker Street?" John sighs in relief.

"Please." After a few moments of them walking back through the building and down on to the street, John speaks up. "You know Lawson got away, right?" John's wings seem to fold in on themselves and disappear into his back, leaving two tears in his shirt and jumper where the powerful limbs used to be.

"Yes. Nothing escapes my notice."

"And it doesn't bother you?"

"Nope. I've got something much more interesting than some normal, everyday murderer."

"And, pray tell, what would that be, then?"

"I've got my very own angel!"

John stopped walking and stared after his friend who continued walking down the street with an air of nonchalance. "You're not experimenting on _me_, Sherlock!" John called, hurrying to catch up with the Great Detective.

* * *

**AN: Well, there you go. I think this is the first Sherlock story that I actually completed. Yay me. Any reviews would be nice. No, really; reviews are what give me the will to go on living... Next up, the sequel to this story, Fallen Angel.**


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